The four most pernicious myths in asbestos litigation: Part I: safe chrysotile and idiopathic mesothelioma.

Abstract

The now well documented phenomenon of "doubt science" has crept into litigation generally, but has had a particularly deleterious effect in asbestos litigation, giving rise to pernicious myths that are told and re-told every day in legal briefs and in court proceedings. Defendants routinely challenge the admissibility of testimony from plaintiffs' expert witnesses when those experts testify about certain key concepts in asbestos medicine and asbestos science. Defendants boldly proclaim plaintiffs' experts' opinions to be "junk science" and seek to have them precluded regardless of how well documented, well researched, well supported and well accepted those opinions are. This has become all too routine in asbestos litigation, where defendants predictably seek to preclude testimony about medical and scientific issues that have been settled for decades and that are not legitimately disputed outside of litigation by the unbiased scientific community of national and international regulatory agencies and scientific organizations.